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‘But everyone is asleep at that hour.’
‘That’s precisely why we’re leaving at that time. Those who are too sleepy need not come.’
Mocca showed disapproval at such impetuosity, but did as he was bid.
They left the city only an hour and a half late. None was too sleepy to come. Mocca accompanied her. So did most of his uncles, brothers, cousins and others who laid claim to some more complicated relationship. As occasion necessitated, they were skilled truck drivers, mining engineers, explosive experts, camping specialists or generally useful for such a safari into the Atlas Mountains. What they did in real life, Amanda had no idea.
Wives came, as well. To do the cooking, Mocca explained. All their wages, of course, had already been invoiced to the palace. Mocca was riding on a sea of riches, the like of which had never come his way before. He clearly believed in making hay while the sun shone. Every night he prayed to Allah for more. The palace was as good as a money-machine, as good as owning the printing press itself. He seemed to have a permanent smile on his young face.
Amanda eyed him curiously as they began their long trek to the location marked on her father’s map. ‘How old are you, Mocca?’
‘Seventeen, but nearly eighteen.’
‘How is it that the older members of your family are happy to defer to you and take orders from you?’
His grin flashed very wide. With his mass of black curly hair, his unlined skin, his dancing dark eyes, he looked like a precocious, mischievous child who was far too knowing for the years that he had lived.
‘It has always been recognised that I am the intelligent one in the famil
y,’ he boasted. ‘Much has been expected. Now I have proved myself. I am no longer the boy. I am the man. I bring in the business. Ever since I was a little boy, I make more money than anyone else. This brings me much respect.’
It did everywhere in the world, Amanda reflected, yet she preferred the respect given to her by the one man who had all-seeing black eyes. He respected the person she was inside. She wished she could stop thinking about him. He disturbed her equanimity, her peace of mind, her composure...even the sense of duty which had driven her to resign her position as general manager of a first-class hotel.
She concentrated on watching the land unfold as they travelled on. Her father had passed this way many years before. He had headed towards the high plateaus. They were his undoing.
The Atlas mountain range traversed several north African countries, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia...but here in Xabia, the geological formations were especially rich in minerals. Amanda imagined her father’s excitement at being granted the chance to discover whatever he could find. With his intelligence, knowledge and endurance it would have been the highlight of his career.
He had found what he had been looking for in the ancient crystalline rock, but Xa Shiraq had turned on him, smashed his triumph, obliterated its existence from any known map.
One way or another, Amanda intended to redress that injustice. She was brooding over how it could be most effectively done when she saw a band of horsemen wearing black burnooses moving onto the road to block their route.
‘Trouble?’ she asked Mocca.
He shrugged. ‘Members of the Chugah, the Berber tribe that inhabit this region. They are part of Jebel Haffa’s personal troops. But we have the sheikh’s permission to pass. There will be no trouble.’
Amanda hoped that was the case. The unsigned chit had worked like a dream so far. Yet the powerful name of Jebel Haffa sent a chill down her spine. He was Xa Shiraq’s right-hand man. What if his troops had received orders to intercept the convoy and escort it back to Alcabab under guard?
The truck ground to a halt. The rows of horsemen parted to let through one lone rider on a magnificent white Arabian horse. He looked both majestic and intimidating in the black hooded cloak. Was it the Berber chieftain or Jebel Haffa himself? Amanda wondered anxiously. Another horseman broke ranks to follow him, holding his pace to the rear of his leader.
Mocca seemed to have no concern in confronting them. He alighted from the cabin, as brightly cheerful as ever, and waited beside the truck to greet the two men. The man on the white Arabian stallion did not dismount, nor did he make any acknowledgement of Mocca’s greeting. He remained in his saddle, maintaining a haughty dignity as the second rider dismounted and conversed with Mocca in rapid Arabic.
Mocca broke away to come around the truck to where Amanda sat on the passenger side. She had the sheikh’s note in her hand, ready to pass it to him but he did not ask for it.
‘We are being honoured with a guide to take us through the mountain passes. He is to ride with us,’ Mocca informed her.
‘But we don’t need a guide,’ Amanda argued. ‘I have precise maps of where I want to go.’
‘It is not a matter of choice,’ Mocca explained with an expressive shrug. ‘It is a matter of honour. They will be insulted if we refuse the offer. It is not wise to insult the Chugah. The guide is to ride with us.’
Amanda sighed, resigning herself to the customs of the country. ‘Very well. If we must.’
There was a rustle of cloth, the squeak of the seat beside her. Amanda swung her head around from the passenger window to find their Berber guide already taking up the space between her and where Mocca would sit behind the driving wheel. She instinctively shrank away from the intruder, not because there was anything offensive about him but because she was suddenly assailed by the sense of some powerful alien force in his presence. It had happened to her once before quite recently.
Her nerve-ends jangled, even as she quickly reasoned that she was being absurdly fanciful. A guide was no more than a guide. She simply wasn’t used to a hooded stranger in close proximity to herself, a big, hooded stranger whose face was obscured by the cowl and a masking cloth. Both were totally superfluous in the cabin of the truck where no dust was kicked up by horses’ hooves.
The guide did not remove them. His arms were folded beneath his cloak, and his attention remained rigidly directed to the road ahead. He was totally immobile.
Most probably he was offended by her, Amanda assured herself. A bare-headed, bare-faced, foreign woman in jeans and shirt might be shaking his sense of propriety. They were a long way from the civilising influences of a capital city now, and the Berbers were born and bred mountain men.
